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Bright Eyes
The three musicians who make up the creative core of Bright Eyes—Conor Oberst, Mike Mogis and Nate Walcott—have taken many breaks from the collective to work on other projects.
“Those things are nice palate cleansers,” Walcott said, perhaps with a touch of irony, during a recent phone interview. “They allow us to come back to Bright Eyes with clearer minds.”
Last year, that clarity resulted in Kids Table, an eight-song EP that follows closely upon the 2024 LP Five Dice, All Threes. The group adds to its long list of collaborators with fellow Americana act Hurray for the Riff Raff and adds ska to its long list of stylistic sidebars with “1st World Blues.” Bright Eyes didn’t regard the tracks as addenda.
“Those songs are not leftovers,” Walcott said. “They stood on their own. We treat pretty much every song the same way: each song gets a chance, and we’ll go 100 percent with it.”
Frenetic Singer
That 100-percent philosophy started with Bright Eyes when it was more obviously the singer-songwriter project of Omaha, Nebraska native Conor Oberst. As the frenetic and verbose lead singer, he remains the focal point of the commitment, but everyone else feels comfortable enough to emote as well.
“We spread the dramatic flair across the board,” Walcott said. “That can be in everyone’s department and realm.”
The realm might be larger among the players in the second phase of Bright Eyes. The first phase ran from roughly 1995 to 2011. In between, there was a hiatus during which Oberst put out music under his own name while Mogis and Walcott produced, arranged for, and played and toured with artists ranging from Phoebe Bridgers to Beck.
Walcott has scored films like 2025’s Regretting You and has experience in classical and jazz music. He’s brought that experience back to Bright Eyes since the band resumed with 2020’s Down in the Weeds, Where the World Once Was.
“From a technical standpoint, I’m able to help realize the ideas,” he said. “When it comes to the presence of orchestral elements, and translating those into a live environment, I can navigate between the orchestral and jazz worlds and bring them into the band in a really direct way.”
On the current tour, the band includes guitarist and clarinetist Ted Stevens, bassist Macey Taylor, drummer Shane Aspegren, violinist Tiffany Kowalski, and cellist Megan Siebe. Stevens and Aspegren are founding members of opening band Lullaby for the Working Class, a Lincoln, Nebraska alt-folk band touring for the first time in over 15 years.
“I recorded on their first record and that’s how I met Mike,” Walcott said, reaching back toward Lullaby’s 1996 debut album, Blanket Warm. (Mogis and Walcott will both perform as part of Lullaby during the tour.) “I was in high school; I was quite into trumpet. He had a studio in his parents’ basement. He asked me to play. We’ve been making music together since then.”
The Lullaby reunion is one evolutionary strand of the relationships within Bright Eyes. “We surround ourselves with an inspiring and ever-changing cast of characters,” Walcott said. “It’s mutual respect and admiration that we have for each other, and that comes through.”
Bright Eyes will perform Friday, Oct. 2 at Turner Hall Ballroom.
